Old Fort Brooke Parking Structure Memorial

Description: Memorial dedicating the downtown parking structure to Old Fort Brooke, which used to stand at the site of the present day Tampa Convention Center at the edge of the Hillsborough River. Old Fort Brooke began as "Cantonment Brooke" in 1823 and was established by Col. George Mercer Brooke and James Gadsden, author of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek. It received the name Fort Brooke, after its founder, in 1824. The fort was built along with many other forts and trading posts throughout Florida in order to obtain better control over the newly acquired area. The United States had bought Florida from Spain only four years before in 1821 in order to put a stop to the Natve American raids against pioneers and to halt the escape of slaves from the north into the swamp lands of Florida where they could emerse themselves into existing Native American tribes. The 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek had designated a piece of land in the center of the state as a reservation for Native Americans such as the Seminole Tribe of south Florida, however it would take much effort to organize the Native American tribes and force them to relocate to the reservation. This would spark what is known as the Seminole Wars. Fort Brooke would serve as a vital military outpost and refuge for pioneers throughout the three Seminole Wars and American Civil War. Fort Brooke also had an important impact on the growth and establishment of Tampa. It was mainly the fort that contributed to the population census, which designated Tampa as the "Village of Tampa" in 1949 and then as a city in 1855. The fort was decommissioned in 1883.